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I have two referee reports to write, several undergraduate and graduate papers to mark, an interesting, but long, book in turgid academese to read and make notes on for next week’s grad seminar, my taxes to do, and myriad other tasks with *deadline* written all over them. But all I could seem to concentrate on in my to-do list in the last couple of days was this:
The third, and for now the last in my baby knits series: a stockinette-y version of the February Baby sweater by Elizabeth Zimmermann. It is testament to EZ’s legendary status in the knitting community that nearly five thousand people have made a pattern that comes without required yardage, finished dimensions or the specified age of the baby and some rather vague directions! For all my railing against the pink-and-blue school of gender stereotypes, I did decide to abandon the lace because this was for a boy. Once I did that it wasn’t as difficult for me to figure out what to do – it’s basically a variant of the five-hour top-down one-piece sweater.
Project Notes:
Pattern: Baby Sweater on Two Needles; Practically Seamless (Elizabeth Zimmermann, Knitter’s Almanac)
Yarn: Cascade 220 Superwash (Wool) in 1919 (green), Lot 7208; Cascade Cotton Club (Cotton/Acrylic), 2702 (off-white). I used 1.25 skeins of the green, and about half a skein of the off-white.
Needles: Size 7 bamboos.
Gauge: somewhere between 4.75 and 5 spi (this was weird, because I usually get 5 spi with size 6 on Cascade 220).
Dimensions: With the increased stitches detailed below, the finished dimensions were 13″ total length, 21″ chest circumference, 5″ shoulder to armhole, and 6″ sleeve length. As you can tell from the pictures below, it fits seven-month-old Sahu fairly loosely, and my guess is these dimensions will be good for a baby up to 12-15 months as well.
EZ’s pattern begins with 50 stitches, and goes up to 148 stitches total at the point where the sleeves and body are separated. I wanted some more, because Sahu’s mum had requested a large sweater that would fit him for a while. So I added 8 more rows in stockinette after the last white garter ridge, and then added 34 stitches evenly across the next row, making the total 182. I then separated the sleeves and body this way: 28 (front)-40(sleeve)-46(back)-40(sleeve)-28(front), making 5 extra stitches between each of the fronts and the back. So after separation there were 112 stitches on the body. I also picked up 5 stitches at the sleeve joins, making each sleeve 45 stitches. Which was probably a bit excessive, and the sleeves were larger than I would have liked, because EZ’s original pattern itself has rather roomy, boxy sleeves.
I am in love with green. I have always liked the mossy, forest greens, but this year I can’t seem to get enough of shades of lime and sage and freshly cut grass. For a commercial yarn, Cascade Heathers has a lot of depth, don’t you think? I initially bought a skein of the white and the green thinking I would do a fair-isle type pattern on the body, but the Cotton Club was much thicker than I realised, so I used it for the garter ridges only. I think it works very well as a design detail – a thicker garter ridge rising up in the middle of stockinette, especially if you use the first knit row of the ridge for your increases.
Stonemountain, as always, delivered with some nice fern buttons, and can you tell how much I love my camera’s macro function?
Two babies in the same building in very different seamless top-down garments, both very very adorable!
Spring is finally here with some gorgeous warm weather. “Here comes the sun” is playing in the cafe as I type this post, the sun streaming through the windows and the trees in blossom outside. The latte is hitting the spot, and despite the grading, taxes, reading and reviewing that I have to finish in the week ahead, I am very happy that it is spring break. My students practically browbeat me into holding class on the grass outside on Friday, and I went on a picnic lunch with Alison, whose visit has been an occasion for more yarn crawls!
I also have another baby project to share with you, a little flowery kimono for Maya, a beautiful one-month-old. I was too terrified to photograph her in it, but Hima, if you’re reading this, do take a couple when she does wear it and send them to me!
This was a lovely, quick project made all the more interesting by the unusual, nubbly texture of the Elann Esprit cotton yarn (which is an identical, poorer, twin of Cascade Fixation). I knit it on size 5 needles, which is a fairly large size for how thin the yarn is, but it still resulted in a fairly firm fabric. I can’t determine whether it’s a purply grey, or a greyish purple, but I decided to jazz it up with the leftover Koigu from the Arch-shaped socks, and also have it sprout some flowers in its grassy texture.
Project Notes:
Pattern: Baby Sachiko Kimono (Ravelry link; it’s available as a free Ravelry download).
Needles: size 5 bamboos
Gauge: 6 spi, I think
Yarn: Elann Esprit, cotton/elastic, 1.5 skeins and Koigu KKPM sock leftovers
Notes:
I have linked to the Sashiko kimono pattern, but I used it just to start at the neck, and then basically worked on the fly as I went along – I didn’t add the side-slits on both sides, and I added buttons with loops instead of I-cord ties. I also shortened the sleeves and decreased a stitch each at both ends of the ‘join’ line of the sleeves at the cuffs, to give it a slightly puffed look. For the red trim, I picked up stitches all around the front edges and neck with the Koigu yarn doubled, and bound off purlwise with a larger needle on the next round. The red trim on the bottom was basically two ridges of garter stitch, then bound off purlwise.
The best part was crocheting the loops on, basically with a chain stitch – a knot on the wrong side with both ends of the yarn holds the loop properly in place. It helped that I found a ladybird-like button to go with the red flowers!
In the last post I said baby knits are difficult because of the odd sizing. I am currently on the third seamless top-down, and I’m also finding that working out interesting variations within the basic seamless raglan theme can be a lot of fun. An interesting design frontier! So far I’ve worked off existing, simple patterns because I’m pressed for time, but I imagine that’s where the design challenge for baby knits lies – you don’t want them too complicated with a lot of finishing because babies outgrow daily wear items fast, and yet you don’t want them to be too boring and repetitive either.
Firstly, check out Manisha’s version of my Stripey hat pattern, her colours are gorgeous!
Secondly, thanks for all the encouragement in the comments a few days ago to finish the blue baby sweater. I went ahead and finished it, and blocked it, and embroidered a likeness of the Cal Berkeley logo on it with a simple chain stitch, am am extremely pleased with the results! The slightly larger front was hardly noticeable, and it ultimately accommodated a very nice baby belly.
There is a saying in Hindi – daane daane pe likhaa hai khaane waale kaa naam (every morsel has its eater’s name etched on it). This sweater, it turns out, was fated for a wearer other than the one I first intended for it. One of my oldest and best friends unexpectedly visited me this past weekend with her daughter, who is quite plainly and simply the world’s cutest baby, and who gurgled and giggled her way into the sweater and my heart. It fit her perfectly, and her mum took away an extra skein of the Inca Gold to add length to it as she grows taller. The only challenge was getting her to be still long enough to take pictures of her in it!
Project Specs:
Pattern: Toddler Tunic by Staci Perry of verypink.com (.pdf link).
Yarn: Berroco Inca Gold, pure wool, in 6425 Azul Marina.
Needles: Size 6 (4mm) addi turbos.
Size: 21 inches chest circumference, 12 inches total length, 5 inches armhole to sleeve, 7 inches armhole to bottom.
Gauge: 5 spi.
Notes:
Babies are hard to knit for! You’d think it’s easy to size baby knits because nothing has to be form-fitting, but sizes and intended ages vary so wildly that it was very stressful trying to figure out just how many to cast on and what length to aim for. I think for the most part one can err on the larger side because they’ll eventually grow into the clothes, but this is not very helpful if you are making something out of wool meant for warmth and by the time the next winter rolls around the baby has outgrown that size altogether. Some patterns are written with 3-month spans (9-12 mths, say) and others, like this one, 12-24 months which seems pretty wide, no? I was aiming for a 9-12 months with this pattern. As it turns out, my gauge was correct, and it fit 8-month-old Mira like a comfy weekend college sweatshirt right now, but her mum assured me it would fit for several months more in width, if not in length. So I am relieved, and am going to use these notes as a guide for when the next baby sizing panic hits me.
Now I’ve cast on with a different yarn and pattern for the baby this was initially meant for. I had thought this would be my spring of socks, but so far it is turning out to be quite the baby knits marathon, which I am enjoying a lot more than I thought I would – despite the fact that nearly all are variations on a seamless raglan theme, there’s a lot of nice baby patterns out there!
I knit two tiny table-tennis bats, a.k.a. infant mittens.
These are also for my three-month old niece, whose tiny hands are very cold in her western Mass house, and so of course she needed some baby cashmere mittens. I modified this basic pattern, which was very helpful to get a sense of dimensions. My mods:
Cast on 48 sts on size 0 dpns,
Knit 2×2 rib for 21 rows,
Knit a row of k2, yo, k2tog all around to make eyelets,
Knit straight stockinette for 22 rows,
[k1, ssk, k18, k2tog, k1] twice,
Knit 2 rows,
[k1, ssk, k16, k2tog, k1] twice,
knit 1 row,
continued decreases every row as established, till I had 16 stitches total,
divided on to two needles equally, and grafted the top.
Then I doubled the yarn and made two chains of crochet, about 50 loops each and threaded it into the eyelets. This was specifically requested by the mum, as a way to keep the mittens secure on the tiny fists. Let’s hope that works!
They do feel like Miniature ping pong bats, sturdy and flat, despite the cashmere-alpaca blend. I have to say, Elann’s Baby Cashmere is a very soft, but crappy yarn. I bought this as a sample last year, and it had disintegrated in three different places in the skein! I had to spit-splice it together which was not pleasant and resulted in unsightly bumps. It hasn’t inspired me to buy more.
But here’s hoping my niece’s tiny, bunched up fists will soon be warm and toasty, with lots of love from her maushi.
Here is one of the most unusual things I have ever knit. Celestine, a dodecahedron designed by my all-time favourite designer, Norah Gaughan.
It’s a gift for a friend’s one-year old. I didn’t want to make another small hat or sweater, so I dug out some Cascade Fixation from my stash and knit this up as a toy. I used just over a ball of the blue and hardly any at all of the white. I used size 5 dpns. It started out small and easy:
then grew to twice its size:
it soon took on a recognizable shape:
but proceeded to sprout somewhat alarmingly in all directions:
until it was tamed, stuffed with cotton rags and firmly disciplined:
Now it looks rather well-fed and content,
even though it definitely has an aspect of the weird, what-in-the-world-is-this anyway, about it.
The original pattern was meant to be a small tree-ornament, but as you can see, the Cascade, the cloth stuffing and the loose gauge have enabled it to evolve into a rather squishy ball. I confess I was mighty excited up to about Point # 6, but the small circumference and continuous picking up of stitches made it a bit fiddly, and the last point, which you have to pick up the stitches for, and knit, with the stuffing inside threatening to escape, was a bit cumbersome. Still, it makes for an unusual toy, and a knitted item that, like all of Gaughan’s creations, teaches you a lot about shape and construction. Let’s hope the little boy enjoys playing with it!
Thank you, thank you, thank you all for the encouragement for my sewing experiment, the tips about machines, books and classes, and the sewing stories and memories. I think I will resist the temptation of buying a machine and an entire fabric store just yet, and tinker around some classes and machines a bit before finalizing one. Watch this space!
Over the last couple of days, instead of sullenly packing and repacking my bags and bitching about having to go back, I completed this lighting-fast project. It has gone a long way in taking the edge of my irritation and despair, because its recipient, a newly-minted niece of mine, is going to show up at the airport to claim it and I cannot *wait* to set eyes on her:
It’s the Little Sister’s Dress, a delightful, clever and quick pattern (and free!). I made the three-month version, but with slightly thicker yarn, so it would run a little large. I love the way it takes the basic top-down seamless pattern and creatively fashions sleeves out of it even as it does away with them. All you do is cast off, and presto: sleeves. My mum knit the last couple of inches at the bottom, adding a small pattern and a slightly ruffled edge. So it’s not as A-lined a frock as it could have been, but it looks just like what we call a zhabla in Marathi.
Specs:
Yarn: Vardhman Little Angel, Shade 123, just over 4 skeins of 50 grams each (anyone know how many yards a skein of this is?)
Needles: size 4 DPNs
Gauge: Did not bother to check
My mum also knit her favourite booties pattern with the frock, and I knit a little helmet with an antenna. My allergy to baby projects is definitely weakening.
The hat was improvised – I cast on 70 stitches, knit 3 rounds and purled 3 rounds for a couple of inches, and then decreased every other round starting with k5, k2tog all around, then k4, k2tog, etc. When there were only 5 sts remaining, I took them all on one needle and made an I-cord antenna.
This shade of red is very difficult to photograph – worse than black, really, cause it bleeds so much, even in natural light. I realized as I was tinkering with the saturation that I haven’t knit anything non-red or non-crimson in nearly a year. My sampler shawl is also this color, and the BPT cardigan was a similar shade too. I think I need to look at some blues and greens now. Or even redecorate the blog a bit, if I can figure out how to change the header image without my title disappearing. Maybe a visit to Stash or Article Pract will cheer me up when I return, what?
